OUGD505: Science Denial: Homeopathy

The Case of Penelope Dingle: Death By Homeopathy

In 2003 Penelope Dingle was diagnosed with rectal cancer. Her personal homeopath Francine Scrayen knew that she had suffered from rectal bleeding since October 2001 and waited 12 months before recommending she go to a doctor.

She was told by Scrayen that her cancer could be cured through homeopathic medicine but only if she rejected all other forms of treatment. Under influence from her partner Peter Dingle as well as her homeopath she decided to take an alternative method to treating her cancer. 

She began to deteriorate rapidly and feeling a lot of pain, her homeopath and husband told her the pain was in her head and that a psychic had predicted her getting well. Not only did the psychic had predict that she would be cured but that the three of them were going to get rich off of the miracle cure. (After Penelope's death it was discovered that her husband and Scrayen had begun writing a book about the use of homeopathy to treat cancer).

She was told to lie to her family and friends about how bad her condition was; they only found out she had cancer at all in late 2003, due to the negative vibes they would supply that would hinder her treatment. 

After 7 months of homeopathic treatment Penelope's cancer status went from 'good chance of survival' to 'no longer curable'. After a series of operations to remove her colon and some of the tumours she did recover slightly however, she died eventually in 2005.

After her death her husband remarried later that year, to a homeopath.

He was quoted writing this in his blog the day after a programme on Penelope's death was released. 

Even a woman from the homeopathic council mentioned this that was later put in the case report.

Some heart wrenching letters from Penelope to Scrayen can be viewed here, this was after Penelope was taken into hospital to receive medical treatment and received her key surgeries. 

What's the harm.com

This resource will be one I will come back to when I look into anti vaccinations further however, for now I will only look into the homeopathy cases. What's the harm houses a collection of data showing cases of people who have been injured or even killed under the practice of different 'alternative' medicines. The homeopathy page contains 437 cases of people who were harmed by the use of homeopathy.

Here are just a few of the stories.

Lorie Atikian

Age: 17 months Ontario, Canada

Died (malnutrition, pneumonia) September 25, 1987

Lorie's parents, concerned about modern food additives, were advised to give her an organic vegetarian diet. She was also treated with herbal & homeopathic remedies and an energy machine. Her parents were convicted of neglect. Case in depth

Cameron Ayres

Age: 6 months Fulham, west London, England 

Died May 1999

Cameron was born with a rare but treatable disorder, but his parents distrusted conventional medicine. A nurse/homeopath begged them to take him to a doctor, but they refused. He died. Article on BBC news

Taken From Article

Cameron died in May last year after suffering a defect in his metabolism which caused a swollen stomach and testicles, extensive nappy rash and an enlarged liver.

He was fed honey and vinegar from an early age by his parents, Jeremy and Sylvie Ayres.

They refused to take Cameron to a doctor, instead visiting a homeopath who begged them to have him treated using conventional means.

Experts believe the baby either suffered an intolerance to a sugar present in fruit and vegetables or there was a defect in the way his body used fat for energy.

Lucille Craven

Age: 54 Pelham, New Hampshire 

Died (untreated cancer) 2000

Lucille concealed the diagnosis of breast cancer from her family. She secretly consulted a naturopath and took homeopathic remedies. She also used quack treatments like blood irradiation. Her cancer raged out of control and she died. Full story here

There are many more and going through each case is making me currently more and more depressed. I'll potentially continue at a later point but until then I'll move onto another part of this topic. Perhaps making these serious issues not depressing may be a way of communicating them, like with Cunnigham's books.

What is Homeopathy?

There was a basic description of homeopathy in the Science Tales book mentioned in a previous post

(pages)

But I also wanted some confirmation and who better to rely on for cold hard fact than Richard Dawkins- after watching his programme enemies of reason I discovered this about homeopathy.

Homeopathy began in the early 19th century and was started by a man named Samuel Hahnemann as a way of boosting the 'natural spirit'. The foundation of homeopathy is the belief that 'like cures like', or what causes symptoms diluted can cure them e.g. onion diluted can cure streaming eyes or snake poison diluted can cure stiffness. The belief also says that the more diluted a substance, the stronger the medicine and most prescribed homeopathic medicine contains 1part solution in 100^30 parts water. As Dawkins says that's not one drop in a fish tank, not one drop in a swimming pool or a lake, of even one drop in the ocean equivalent. In fact the equivalent is 1 drop per all atoms in the solar system combined. 

The belief that something so diluted can actually have an effect is the idea of water memory- that water can hold onto the memory of an ingredient it once contained. 

The NHS has a homeopathic clinic that was renovated for (in 2011) £10,000,000 equivalent. The head of this clinic when asked says 'Sometimes I'm not sure of the plausibility... I couldn't stop even if I wanted to because my patients wouldn't let me.' He also says when asked how it works (in relation to a heavily diluted salt solution) 'I don't know how it works, nobody knows how it works. That doesn't mean it doesn't work'


Political Cartoons
Cartoons have always been a light hearted way of presenting serious information. Also the satirical humour appeals to me.

Here's some on homeopathy.